Orchestrating Fulfillment Excellence: How VARGO®’s Advanced Fulfillment Solutions Meet Industry-Specific Needs

GREENCREST on October 15, 2025

In today’s rapid world of supply and demand, distribution centers must find effective ways to keep operations running quickly and smoothly. However, every industry has its own set of unique demands and challenges, and therefore require different technology, strategies and solutions to help achieve faster, smarter and more efficient operations.

See how VARGO® solutions have empowered fulfillment in a range of industries:

Apparel and Accessories

When Gap’s fulfillment network was straining under pressure, with picking productivity under 100 units per hour, cycle times over 55 hours and nearly 10% of orders delayed or in error, VARGO® implemented multiple advanced technologies to solve the problem.

COFE® – Our proven waveless, continuous fulfillment system synchronized people, processes and automation in real time to optimize throughput and labor efficiency.

OPEX® Sure SortTM, TGW carton ASRS, Eurosort item sortation and Interroll Cross Belt- This combination of technologies resulted in a system designed for scalability, responsiveness, reduced maintenance needs and operational flexibility.

Result:

  • Tripled peak-day network capacity from <2M to 6M+ units
  • Increased picking productivity to 200+ units per hour
  • Cut average cycle time to under 12 hours
  • Reduced problem orders to <0.1%

Torrid, one of the largest direct-to-consumer apparel brands in North America for women sizes 10 to 30, realized its systems had reached capacity. In addition to COFE®, VARGO® integrated the following solutions:

  • Eliminated bottlenecks – Removed the mechanical buffer system and created a reserve replenishment method for the active pick model.
  • Optimized sortation – Retrofitted the unit sorter into a sort-to-putwall design.
  • Established a continuous flow – Partnered with Matthews Automation and BEUMER Group to rework controls and sortation equipment.

Result:

  • 200% increase in throughput capacity
  • 75% faster order completion times
  • 66% reduction in exception orders

Pharmaceuticals Distribution

Anda Pharmaceuticals had to capture and trace the serial number and other unique identification numbers of each item shipped from its Olive Branch, Mississippi and Weston, Florida facilities. VARGO® helped them reach this goal by doing the following:

  • Built a label parsing algorithm to extract the National Drug Code, unique serial number, lot number and expiration date from the manufacturer’s 2D barcode.

Result:

  • Anda can now capture, track and communicate critical information parsed from manufacturer labels as Anda products travel in the supply chain.
  • Anda is now meeting the DSCSA’s pharmaceutical supply chain requirements.

Beverage Distribution

As the pandemic reshaped many aspects of daily life, businesses in the food and beverage sector experienced an influx in online delivery orders. WineDirect, the wine industry’s leading direct-to-consumer fulfillment network, reached out to VARGO® during this time for solutions that would allow them to meet increased wine home delivery demand, and expand their fulfillment center to increase efficiencies.

  • Increase capacity – VARGO®added nine diverts and four take away lines to the existing packing sorter to help meet increased demand. A third taper was also added to the fulfillment solution.
  • Created a scalable, flexible system – This system allows WineDirect to adapt to both expected and unexpected demand changes.
  • COFE® integration – COFE® works in real time to organize, sequence and synchronize all warehouse resources, enabling continuous flow picking that minimizes order cycle times, maximizes efficiency and eliminates waves and buffers.

Result: 

  • Shorter order cycle times
  • Doubled capacity

Parts Distribution

When a national tire retailer decided to build a new distribution center that could handle a wider selection of products, allow for crossdocking at two of its distribution center operations in Seattle and Denver and increase fulfillment capabilities, VARGO® transformed fulfillment by doing the following:

  • Developed a custom-designed solution – This solution was modeled after VARGO®’s successful implementation at the retailer’s Chicago facility.
  • Incorporated advanced technology – This technology reduces the number of product touches before reaching the final destination, improving efficiency and accuracy.

Result:

  • 2,000 tires per hour to 70 tire stores (Denver distribution center)
  • 1,250 tires per hour to 40 tire stores (Seattle distribution center)
  • 4,500 tires per hour to 100 tire stores
  • 25% more capacity for expansion
  • VARGO® design improved associate productivity by 20%

General Merchandise

A large-scale ecommerce general merchandiser reached out to VARGO® when they needed to locate, design and build a new ecommerce fulfillment center in 9 months that could handle 8M units and fulfill 2-hour order cycle times. VARGO® implemented the following:

  • IT integration – IT integration of WMOS ’13, Reddwerks PTL, 5 sortersall active multi-SKU per slot inventory, RF.
  • Product integration – Procured, built and integrated products from Dematic, TGW, Beumer, Speedrack cantilever active module, Reddwerks and Ryson.

Result:

  • Year 1 PEAK season goals met
  • 2-hour service levels
  • Full waveless processing

Beauty

The largest beauty retailer in the United States partnered with VARGO®  to reimagine its fulfillment network in order to expand capacity, improve productivity and allow the retailer to get closer to their customers.

  • Upgraded existing fulfillment centers – Integrated automation to boost productivity.
  • Added new fulfillment centers – To increase capacity and bring inventory closer to customers.
  • Implemented COFE® WES – To coordinate workflow across automation.
  • Integrated new technologies – Including Hytrol sorters, OPEX® Perfect Pick® ASRS, SureSort systems, and Dematic Multishuttle® to improve picking and reduce manual touches.
  • Deployed Locus AMRs – For retail and e-commerce order picking.

Result:

  • Capacity expanded to 750,000 units/day in existing facility
  • Capacity expanded to 250,000 units/day in new facility

VARGO® Powers Peak Performance Across Industries

Regardless of industry or channel, VARGO® enables what’s possible and allows customers to increase throughput, improve accuracy, reduce cycle times, scale efficiently and improve operations using innovative technology and proven strategy.

Regardless of industry, we’re here to help! Contact us and let’s work together to turn your fulfillment troubles into triumphs!